Post-ministerial jobs watchdog closes as part of UK government ethics shake-up | Politics
The much-criticized watchdog who examines the jobs UK ministers can take after leaving office will be formally sacked on Monday as part of a wider shake-up of ethics in government.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), described by critics as essentially toothless, has been closed and its functions taken over by the two existing regulators, the Cabinet Office said in an announcement.
At the same time, a new organization called the Ethics and Integrity Commission will oversee the work of a number of other regulators; The centerpiece of what Keir Starmer promises will be a robust new approach to government and all forms of departmental evil.
Also from Monday, the previously announced severance pay ban on ministers who lose their jobs due to serious violations of the ministerial code will come into force.
In the change, first reported by the Guardian in July, former ministers who take on new jobs in serious breaches of rules on post-government appointments could be asked to hand back their severance pay.
The standard severance pay for a departing minister is one-quarter of his ministerial salary, unless he is given a new primary position within three weeks. For cabinet ministers this works out to just under £17,000.
In the new system, those who have served for less than 6 months are expected not to receive a salary, while those who start their new ministry duties within 3 months will be asked not to receive a salary until the end of this 3-month period.
With Acoba abolished, Starmer’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, will decide on rules for appointing former ministers. The Civil Service Commission, which regulates recruitment to the civil service, will do so for former public servants and government special advisers.
However, the Ethics and Integrity Commission is not a completely new organization; It takes on the work of the existing Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL), which is tasked with advising the prime minister on wider ethical standards.
The commission will be chaired by CSPL’s current chairman, Doug Chalmers, a former soldier who ended his military career as deputy chief of defense staff.
In a letter to Chalmers over the new commission, Starmer said one of the organisation’s duties should be to ensure ministers and civil servants help other public servants meet their responsibilities under the yet-to-be-ratified Hillsborough legislation, which obliges them to act with honesty and candor and avoid cover-ups.
The announcement included the following statements: “The Prime Minister has made clear that public service is a privilege and is determined to show how politics can be a force for good. The government’s manifesto pledges to set the highest standards in public life to restore trust between the public and politics.”
Cabinet Office Secretary of State Nick Thomas-Symonds said the Ethics and Integrity Commission would “play a central role” in ensuring the government delivers on its pre-election promise to maintain the highest standards in public office.
It remains to be seen how big an impact will be achieved from a minor reorganization of the framework for monitoring ethical standards and the creation of a new, high-level watchdog whose job is not to enforce the rules but to ensure that others do the same.
As well as Magnus’s office and the Civil Service Commission, other bodies involved in ethics for public life include the parliamentary standards commissioner, parliament’s Independent Complaints and Complaints Service, the House of Lords Appointments Committee, the Electoral Commission, the UK Parliamentary Standards Authority and the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists.
